Childhood is possibly the most complicated phase in anybody's life. People talking , people preaching, aunties pulling cheeks... children observe it all, including the hypocrisy in the adults around them. From very early in life, we expose our children to lessons of righteousness and virtues such as honesty when we ourselves don't live up to what we preach. Examples such as "santa's for real", "storks delivering babies", "granny went and became a star in the sky" could be heard in most households. The reasons why parents choose to nurture these lies in their child's mind are many and mostly quite genuine but in the end, they still are lies.. So does this mean a lie is justified if we feel the reason for it is strong? If I want my child to have fun like other kids on Christmas or I want him to stop asking me how he was born or protect him from feeling sad about granny passing on, am I justified in throwing in a white lie here or there?
Let us look at this from a child's perspective. A child idolizes her parents. She waits for them to return home to take her out to the park or mall; she looks up to them for bringing beautiful stories to her every night. Does it matter to her if those stories are real or not? Not really, she will make them real in her dreams. Does it matter to her if those dreams are real or not? I don't think so, she enjoys the stories anyway. As she grows up, she will hear the stories of bravery, of victory of good over evil, of prevalence of truth over lies and she will try and emulate that in her life. She will falter at times- she will steal, lie, cheat... but if she trusts her parents, she will come back to them with a sorry and a promise of being good. So what is key here is to build "trust" in more ways than just always telling the truth. She might trust you more if you comfort her and make her smile and tell her granny's okay wherever she is than if you told her the sad truth. Because that sad truth would likely have been preceded by the false comfort that granny will be okay and nothing would happen to her. This would make you a liar in her eyes.
Bottomline - A little white lie never hurt anyone :)
